Science & Technology Diplomacy

What is Science & Technology Diplomacy?

Science and technology (S&T) diplomacy is the use of scientific capability, technological strength and knowledge networks as instruments of foreign policy. Its origins lie in the Cold War, when the United States and the Soviet Union harnessed technology to empower their militaries and pursue strategic goals.

The nuclear arms race, in turn, gave rise to a web of technology-denial regimes aimed at preventing the spread of sensitive know-how — the flip side of the same coin.

The post-Cold War era transformed the field. The explosion of information technology (IT) made technology-for-growth a central national ambition, while the digitisation of economic life created new vulnerabilities. As data moved online, cyberspace protection became essential and cyber war emerged as a new paradigm of conflict.

The discipline of international relations, which began as the study of war and diplomacy, has therefore steadily absorbed science and technology as a tool of statecraft.

Why S&T Diplomacy Matters for India

• Engine of national power: technological strength underpins economic growth, military capability and global standing in an age of geo-economics.
• Instrument of influence: leadership in critical technologies gives a country leverage in shaping global rules and partnerships.
• Bridge to partners: joint research, standards-setting and supply-chain cooperation build durable strategic relationships.
• Shield of sovereignty: cyber-security, data governance and control of critical infrastructure are now core to national security.
• Development multiplier: technology sharing extends benefits to partner nations, converting capability into goodwill and soft power.

India’s Rise as a Technology Power

India has moved from being a recipient of technology to an emerging shaper of the global tech order. Its IT and business-services sector is a global heavyweight — worth well over two hundred billion dollars in annual revenue, most of it from exports, and powered by millions of skilled professionals.

This scale gives India both economic weight and diplomatic voice in the geopolitics of technology.

Frontier	India’s push
Semiconductors	A dedicated Semiconductor Mission and incentives to attract fabrication, design and assembly investment.
Artificial Intelligence	Founding membership of the Global Partnership on AI, co-leading work on responsible AI and data governance.
Supercomputing	The National Supercomputing Mission to raise indigenous high-performance computing capacity.
Manufacturing	Production-Linked Incentive schemes to build domestic manufacture of electronics and hardware.

The Turn to Public and Digital Diplomacy

A defining application of S&T diplomacy has been the rise of public diplomacy — the state using its foreign-policy tools to connect directly with target audiences abroad, rather than only with governments. India has embraced this aggressively, with social media as a core strategy.

The philosophy is simple: reach multiple actors — the young, civil society, the diaspora, NGOs and the private sector — through innovative channels that enable two-way communication, projecting India’s positive attributes at the right time and place.

▸ Landmarks in India’s Digital Diplomacy

2007	The world’s first virtual embassy was unveiled by the Maldives — an early signal that the diplomacy of the future would run on IT.
2011	The MEA’s Public Diplomacy division used Twitter to help evacuate Indians from Libya — for planning, coordination and information-sharing — a landmark in social-media-enabled crisis diplomacy.
2012	During the Arab Spring, an Indian mission ran a social-media poster contest — ‘Did you see the Gandhian spirit at Tahrir Square?’ — linking Gandhi’s legacy to a live global moment.

When civil war engulfed Libya in 2011, thousands of Indian citizens were stranded. The Ministry of External Affairs turned to Twitter as an operational tool — broadcasting instructions, gathering location data and coordinating the movement of citizens to safety.

The episode showed that a digital platform could become part of the machinery of a large-scale evacuation, and cemented social media as a permanent instrument of Indian public diplomacy.

Technology Partnerships and Institutions

India increasingly conducts technology diplomacy through structured partnerships and dedicated institutions that fuse foreign policy with innovation.

• iCET (India–US Critical & Emerging Technology): launched in 2023 to drive joint R&D in AI, quantum computing, 5G/6G, space and defence innovation.
• Quad technology cooperation: work with the US, Japan and Australia on critical and emerging technologies and supply-chain resilience, including semiconductors.
• Global Partnership on AI (GPAI): a founding member, shaping global norms for responsible artificial intelligence.
• NEST division of the MEA: a dedicated New and Emerging Strategic Technologies wing that coordinates tech diplomacy across ministries and at forums such as the UN and G20.
• Development-tech sharing: digital public infrastructure, vaccines and satellite services extended to partner nations as instruments of goodwill.

The Geopolitics of Technology

Science and technology diplomacy has changed character in the last decade. Where it once meant research collaboration and capacity-building, it is now an arena of strategic competition in which technology is treated as an instrument of national power — and denial of technology as an instrument of coercion. For India this is the newest and fastest-moving front in foreign policy.

The defining insight is that power in this domain does not lie with whoever manufactures the most. It lies with whoever controls the chokepoints — the design software, the lithography machines, the processing capacity, the standards. A state that controls a chokepoint can shut down an industry anywhere in the world without firing a shot.

The Weaponisation of Supply Chains

Two episodes established the pattern. From 2019 the United States used export controls to cut Chinese firms off from advanced chips and the equipment to make them, demonstrating that control over upstream technology could reshape a global industry. China’s response has been to exploit its own chokepoint: dominance of the processing of critical minerals and rare earths.

The Rare-Earth Squeeze — A Direct Lesson for India

China imposed phased export restrictions on rare earths and related products through late 2025, extending to goods made abroad using Chinese-origin material. India had been sourcing the overwhelming majority of its rare-earth magnets from China — leaving domestic industry, especially automobiles and electronics, with only weeks of stock. The episode showed that supply-chain dependence is a strategic vulnerability, not merely a commercial one, and that economic interdependence can be turned into leverage at short notice.

India’s Response — Building Sovereign Capability

Domain	India’s response
Semiconductors	The India Semiconductor Mission has approved a series of fabrication, assembly and packaging projects; a second phase extends support upstream to equipment, wafers, speciality chemicals and gases, where import dependence is greatest
Critical minerals	The National Critical Mineral Mission, rare-earth corridors across eastern and southern states, overseas acquisition through KABIL, and recycling initiatives to reduce single-source dependence
Digital public infrastructure	Exporting the India Stack model — UPI, Aadhaar-type identity systems, ONDC — as an alternative to both Western platform capitalism and Chinese state-linked systems
Telecom and 5G/6G	Indigenous 4G/5G stacks and the Bharat 6G vision, with trusted-vendor rules restricting equipment from untrusted sources
Artificial intelligence	The IndiaAI Mission, compute capacity building, and participation in global AI-governance debates as a voice for the Global South
Space and quantum	Private-sector opening in space, the National Quantum Mission, and technology-sharing arrangements with partners

The Diplomacy of Technology Partnerships

India has responded to chokepoint politics by joining trusted-partner networks rather than attempting autarky.

• With the United States: the Initiative on Critical and Emerging Technologies (iCET), succeeded by the TRUST framework, covering semiconductors, artificial intelligence, quantum and — significantly — the recovery and processing of critical minerals and rare earths.
• With the European Union: the Trade and Technology Council, one of only two such arrangements the EU maintains, spanning trusted technology, digital governance and green tech.
• With Japan, Australia and the Quad: supply-chain resilience initiatives and critical-minerals cooperation aimed explicitly at reducing concentration risk.
• With the Global South: digital public infrastructure as a development offer, positioning India as a provider of technology that carries neither commercial extraction nor political conditionality.

The Strategic Dilemmas

Technology geopolitics forces choices India has historically preferred to avoid. Trusted-partner arrangements bring access but pull India toward one bloc; strategic autonomy argues for keeping options open, yet chokepoint control means that neutrality can leave a state with no supplier at all.

Three tensions define the current debate: between self-reliance and the reality that no country builds a semiconductor industry alone; between data sovereignty and the openness that attracts investment; and between India’s interest in shaping AI and digital-governance rules and its limited weight in the bodies where those rules are being written.

Issues and Challenges

Challenge	Explanation
Digital divide	Wide urban–rural gaps in internet access and device ownership limit inclusive participation in the digital economy.
Low R&D investment	Research spending of roughly 0.7% of GDP lags well behind leading powers, with weak industry–academia links.
Data & cyber risks	Privacy breaches and cyber-attacks threaten security and public trust in digital systems.
Misinformation	The rapid spread of fake news on social media disrupts social harmony and can be weaponised.
Ethical dilemmas	Emerging tools such as facial recognition raise concerns about bias, discrimination and privacy.
Technology denial	Export controls on advanced and dual-use technology continue to constrain access to cutting-edge systems.

The Way Forward

• Bridge the divide: invest in nationwide digital infrastructure so the benefits of technology reach every region.
• Raise R&D and innovation: increase research spending and strengthen industry–academia collaboration to build a self-sustaining innovation ecosystem.
• Institutionalise tech diplomacy: expand the NEST division and appoint dedicated technology ambassadors to amplify India’s global tech voice.
• Strengthen data governance: implement robust data-protection law to regulate privacy, movement and use of personal data.
• Shape ethical norms: lead global rule-making on responsible AI, data ethics and the peaceful use of emerging technologies.
• Deepen digital public diplomacy: use social media and digital public goods to connect with global audiences and project a positive national image.

Synthesis

Science and technology have travelled from the periphery of diplomacy to its very centre. For India, the task is twofold: to convert its formidable technological and digital strengths into durable strategic partnerships and global influence, while closing the domestic gaps in research, access and governance that could otherwise blunt that ambition.

Handled well, technology becomes not just a tool of foreign policy but a defining marker of India’s place in the world.